Alexa Brenneman, Bengals Cheerleader, Sues Team for Being Paid $2.85 an Hour
Alexa Brenneman, a Bengals cheerleader, is suing the team and the organization for paying the girls less than minimum wage. After calculations including mandatory practices and other appearances, the Ben-Gals get paid around $2.85 per hour, which is lower than the 2013 Ohio minimum wage of $7.85.
Alexa Brenneman detailed the duties of Bengals cheerleaders in the lawsuit, which was filed Tuesday: the girls must show up for practices, games, pose for an annual calendar, and appear at "no fewer than 10 'charity' functions a season."
"When all of the mandatory practice time, public appearance time, time spent at Paul Brown Stadium on game days, and time posing for and promoting the Ben-Gals calendar are added together, the Ben-Gals spend well over 300 hours a year, 'working for the Bengals organization,'" the suit continued.
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At a rate of $90 per game, the cheerleaders were paid just $855 between May 2013 and January 2014. However, Brenneman is filing the lawsuit on behalf of everyone who worked as a Ben-Gal from Feb. 10 2011 to the present.
Brenneman's legal grounds for pursuing the lawsuit stem from the Ohio Minimum Fair Wage Standards Act and the fact that the team designates the girls as employees, according the website. The claim also points out that the Bengals are part of the NFL, which is a revenue-sharing program, but that the monies brought in by the cheerleaders isn't shared with the rest of the league.
Cheerleaders like the Ben-Gals bring in an estimated extra "$1 million per season" to the team," according to a 2003 Forbes article.
The Bengals organization called the "copycat" and said they would address the lawsuit in "due course."
"Yesterday's lawsuit appears to be a copycat lawsuit that mimics the one filed last month in California against a different NFL club," they said in a statement. The Bengals organization was referring to the Oakland Raiders' cheerleaders, known as the Raiderettes, who said they were being paid around $5 an hour.
There are some teams that pay their cheerleaders more money: the Seattle Seahawks pay their cheerleaders an hourly wage plus overtime, and the NBA Cleveland Cavaliers pay the girls for work besides just games, the suit said.
